At the end of spring break, the Botanic Garden wrapped up its annual Bulb Show, where thousands of flowers contrasted dreary March skies. The Bulb Show is an annual two-week event that began over 100 years ago. It attracts visitors with precisely coordinated blooms and art installations, but to Botanic Garden Director John Berryhill, the show is more than just a colorful display. “I hope it's [an] invitation to see what we are the other 50 weeks of the year,” Berryhill said.

Picture a ten-foot by eight-foot hole, five feet deep, filled with rocks and logs in such a way that there are gaps between them. Three tunnels, made of clay roofing tiles, connect the hole's depths to the surrounding hillside. Flat rocks surrounding the hole warm in the winter sun. Courtesy of Sarah Gygax ’28. Watercolor cross-section of the hibernaculum by Sarah Gygax ’28. This likely does not sound like the best place for rest, unless you are an eastern ratsnake. Smith Co

When he’s not drinking raw milk, mauling bears, or rejecting the measles vaccine, RFK Jr. is busy telling women how to manage their bodies. Trump’s inaugural National Conference on Women’s Health in Washington was held from March 11-13th, aimed at advancing research, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of health conditions affecting women. The event was spearheaded by representatives from the MAHA movement, covering topics including menopause, hormone therapy, fertility, and

“Turn on the propane first with this knob, then turn this knob for the oxygen.” A flame, half a foot long, bursts from the nozzle. That was Sally Prasch, a scientific glassblower of the UMass Glassblowing Laboratory. In February, the Student Event Committee organized three workshops at the lab for Smithies to learn the unique craft of glassblowing, an intersection of art and science that cannot be found on campus. Sally Prasch demonstrates how to melt the end of a glass rod.

The night before a snowstorm, as students across campus hunker down with hot chocolate and cross their fingers for a snow day, Smith Facilities Management gets to work. They roll out trucks pouring a sticky, sometimes smelly, brown substance onto Smith’s roads and walkways. This mysterious concoction is called Liquid Magic, and its contents have much to reveal about the science behind ice melts. The term ice melt is a bit of a misnomer; most ice melts actually work by prevent

In California’s Death Valley National Park, there is a water-filled cavern known as the Devil’s Hole. These waters maintain temperatures of 91°F with oxygen levels as low as 2–3 ppm, and they are home to the critically endangered Devil’s Hole pupfish, hereafter referred to as D.H. pupfish. Devil’s Hole pupfish, Feuerbacher. (2011). Creative Commons License. The D.H. pupfish has the most limited range of any known vertebrate, found only in the upper 100 feet of a small cavern.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash In the winter of 2024, three extraordinary wolves were born on a 2000-acre wildlife preserve in an undisclosed location. Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are the poster children for Colossal Biosciences, advertised as the first direwolves to walk the earth since the species’ extinction tens of thousands of years ago. Their snowy coats, formidable size, and distinctive vocalizations are absent in the gray wolves who provided their base genomes.